


Healing

by belmanoir



Category: Kyle XY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessi wants Foss to teach her how to torture people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** References to torture.

"I want you to teach me how to torture people."

"No," Tom said shortly. His voice sounded okay, but knowing Jessi, she could probably hear his heartbeat speeding up and smell that he'd broken into a cold sweat. He looked at her. Now that things were safer, he'd started training the kids outdoors sometimes. Today he was teaching her to walk silently in the woods. She was wearing jeans and a green sweater with roses on it. There was a pink ribbon in her hair, for fuck's sake, and she wanted him to teach her to torture people.

"Why not?" she asked. "I know you know how."

"Did Kyle tell you that?"

"No, I saw it in his memories when he was showing me something else."

It weirded him out, the way they walked around in each other's heads. "I'm not going to teach you how to torture people. Now try it again. I could hear leaves crunching last time."

"Why not?"

"You waited till Kyle wasn't here to talk to me about it. How do you think _he'd_ feel about torture?" He figured that would shut her up. Usually it bugged him how transparently she adored him--maybe because he was never sure how much of it was Ballantine's programming, or maybe just because he remembered how shitty it was to be sixteen and in love--but right now he'd use anything he could get. 

"He'd hate it," she said immediately. "That's why we have to do it for him."

Unexpectedly, fury choked him. He'd spent his life doing other people's dirty work. He didn't regret it, but anyone could see Jessi was destined for bigger things. "Fine," he said harshly, and pulled out his cigarette lighter. "One of the easiest ways to torture someone is to burn them. You can cause a lot of pain without doing much permanent damage."

She looked interested. He handed her the lighter, trying to swallow the bile in his throat. It took her a few tries to figure out how to use it. Smoking must not be her brand of teenage rebellion.

"Good," he said, rolling up his sleeve. "You'll need practice."

"Okay."

He held out his arm. "Try it on me." 

She gave him that uncertain little smile that meant she thought he was teasing, and was half frustrated that she couldn't tell for sure and half pleased at the attention. "I don't want to torture _you_."

He hadn't been sure. Feeling a little lightheaded, he pressed his advantage. "Why not?" 

"It would hurt you."

"Trust me, it'd hurt somebody else just the same." 

She frowned. "This is about how I lack empathy again, isn't it?"

"No."

"You would really have let me burn you?"

He rolled his sleeve back down. "You'd have known if I lied."

"I don't understand." 

He didn't know how to make her. But he had to. "It's wrong to hurt people, Jessi," he said roughly. "There has to be a balance. So when you torture someone else, it kills a part of you."

She looked down at herself, curious. "Which part?"

He was surprised into a bitter laugh. "I don't know. I just know I used to feel different before I went overseas. I used to feel more."

She brightened. "Kyle's teaching me how to heal people. Do you want me to try on you?"

"Damn it, Jessi! It can't be healed. This isn't a game! Some things don't just _play_ dead with their hearts slowed to two beats per minute. It's gone."

"I don't understand what you mean." Poor kid. She just wanted things to make sense, and they never did. Not for anyone, and sure as hell not for Jessi and Kyle. Kyle dealt better with the uncertainty, though. Jessi just got frustrated. Like him.

"I can do things now I couldn't before," he told her.

"Like what?" 

"I blew up Zzyzx!" he shouted. "I tried to kill you! You think that's something a person should be able to do?" 

Her big dark eyes got bigger. Hadn't Kyle told her? The hurt on her face broke his heart. "Well, you didn't know me then," she said finally, like a little child telling stories to comfort herself. 

"Everybody you hurt is just someone you don't know yet, Jessi. The world's not divided up into good people and people it's okay to burn!"

She blinked. "I know _that._ There aren't good people and bad people. There's just people I care about and people I don't."

It was how he felt, most of the time, so he didn't know what else to say, how to explain that it was wrong. She was just a kid--only eight months older than his daughter would have been if she'd survived--and she didn't know what she was talking about. Even when you thought you didn't care, it caught up to you. The burn victims and Kern hardly ever bothered him anymore, but he dreamed about Zzyzx sometimes twice a week. In his dream her eyes were open. She was pounding on the side of that damn pod, begging and crying at him to save her, and he just set the fuses and walked out. 

"No," he told her again, flatly. Every muscle in his body echoed it. _No._

"That's not fair."

"Life isn't fair."

She tilted her head. "When Stephen found out that Josh was smoking weed, he made a deal with him."

He seized on it, hope flaring. "What kind of deal?" What did fathers bribe their teenaged sons with? Money? Ice cream? A car?

"He said that if Josh couldn't smoke, then neither could he." So Stephen Trager was a pothead. Why was he not surprised? "So if I can't torture anyone, neither can you," Jessi finished with a triumphant smile.

He stared at her, trapped. He'd do anything to protect her and Kyle. He needed to be able to do anything. But she'd know if he lied.

"Hypocrite," she muttered, and threw his lighter at him.

He caught it in his left hand. It smacked his palm hard enough to hurt like hell--she'd put her wrist into it--but he didn't make a sound. "Deal," he said, and held out his other hand. She shook it. 

He tried to feel relieved, but she was still frowning. He should have known it couldn't be that easy. "What?" 

"I asked Kyle why he doesn't hug you."

His mouth went dry. He'd wondered that too. 

"He said he's trying to respect your personal boundaries. Why do you have such a stupid personal boundary?"

"I--I don't." He blinked hard. He was tired of these rushes of feeling, but he couldn't seem to get rid of them. 

Her frown melted into a sudden bright smile. "Kyle was wrong?"

He smiled grudgingly back. "We should mark it on the calendar."

She dove forward and hugged him. He would have expected her to do it awkwardly, but she'd had more practice than he'd thought. Her arms slid easily around him and she laid her cheek against his shoulder like she did it every day. 

_There's just people I care about, and people I don't._ How the hell had he made it into the first category? Irrationally afraid he would do it wrong--he guessed he was the one who was out of practice--he put his arms around her and held her tight, let her try to heal him.


End file.
